Encampment proposal - cooperate with Cigy

There's a lot of desire to have an encampment. I keep hearing that without it we are not really 'Occupiers'. I want to help with that goal in a way that minimizes confrontation. The confrontation approach detracts from our social justice message, and that's the part that motivates me. Here's what I'm thinking ...

a. The City Council voted for what became the 2H Inititative against corporations. They are clearly sympathetic to our issues. I don't think they deserve to be viewed as our enemy.

b. The Boulder City government is certainly seeing what tent cities and civil disobedience are about in other municipalities. As a result of national coverage they are likely to view a tent city in an antagonistic manner and most likely they want to avoid the whole concept of a tent city. There is no inherent reason for Occupy Boulder and the City of Boulder to be fighting one another regarding the prospect of an encampment.

c. The idea of a tent-city is very do-able and reasonable, just not in downtown Boulder.

If OccupyBoulder could be persuaded to view the tent city idea in an open space (Maybe at Chatauqua) rather than downtown then the city would "save face". Also if Occupy Boulder could be persuaded away from the downtown area, it would double as a bargaining chip to get something from them such as an advisory board (just for an example of a tradeoff - others could envision some different tradeoffs). The advisory board could be made up of OccupyBoulder and meet with the City Manager once per month. We could be recommending that the City use it's resources and clout to advance and implement solutions to the Occupy Grievances (develop one solution per month). The tent city (especially an idealistic one such as Daniel Schwartz has mentioned) and our relationship with the city could be a success that the City could point to for other Occupy Cities to copy. An idealistic encampment could be a national model that the City brags about as a solution for the homeless. OccupyBoulder could become an Ombudsman concept for disaffected citizens of the area. My proposal requires the proponents of encampment to give a little (not much!). This is my concept of how Boulder could support a tent city as Daniel Schwartz has suggested that they should, PLUS support actions to satisfy our grievances.

I think part of how we can build a good case with the city is to look at cities that are good models for cooperative relationships with their cities.